It's all about words! (writing that moves us)

I am surprised with you people! Amber's forum may have been created to provided Cam Girls/models, at arena to share work and their thoughts. (I'm guessing here, I don't really know, and I don't care enough to research it.)

What I wanted to get to, is that this forum has been allowed to become a wonderful mix of people. A mix of very diverse voices and points of view, and it seems to work very well. The topics are as mixed and as diverse as the crowd/usual suspects.

The surprise came when I did a search for a thread with 'write' or 'writing' in the title. Nothing, no one has thought to set the stage, for the next great short story, for the next compelling essay, for the reproduction of the moving bit of words discovered somewhere else. The latter of these, was what compelled me to do the search. I think we all like to play with words; like to see them played with in interesting ways. And have found pieces of writing here or there that are so moving that we wished we had authored it.

So I am starting this thread with a moving piece of work that I had to share. It is how I would like to write some day when I grow up. I also think it is a good example of writing that bleeds passion. Hemingway wrote somewhere in a Moveable Feast, (without the text here in front of me it may be not exact), When you can not think of anything to write, write the truest thing you know, let that be your first sentence.

I would like to see some original works posted here also. I think most of us like to hear our own thoughts spoken in our own voice. (Lets be honest we like to hear our self talk, and we think we think we have brilliant thoughts, that's why we're here in part.) Replies to post are loose weave, and criticism is aimed at content, and not so much its composure in other threads. This is as it should be, especially considering that many of the posters here are not originally English speaking persons. Posting our writing here will be a bit frightening if we stick to the spirit of the thread; Writing that moves us for writing's sake. (Perhaps why I am starting with the writing of someone else.) I will ad something I wrote, as soon as I manage to write something I am sure everyone will love. lol.

The below was found at "Embrace The Suck" which shows a solder crawling on hands and knees, muddied in battle, under the title banner, and below reads, "if you can't annoy somebody, there is little point in writing anything at all. Kingsley Amis."

Posted Aug. 4, 2011
Everyone, CALM. THE. FUCK. DOWN. I got this...
The longer that I'm nuts, the more fun it becomes for me...

I know that's probably not the most healthy attitude in the world to have about my particular set of problems. But I just can't seem to help myself.

I swing back and forth, going from depressed to maniacally happy, to tired, to not being able to sleep for days. To taking a sleeping pill or 7 and sleeping for 14 hours and damn near missing work. I don't drink all that much, not because I'm averse to drinking, its mostly because I don't want to miss a minute of the lunacy!

Try explaining that to people! They'll probably want to have you committed.

Try explaining half of what goes on in my head to anyone and after a few minutes they're going to decide that I'm so far off the deep end that I can't even see the bottom anymore. Which is pretty much fine with me.

Try explaining to people that the reason you hate the everyday mundane details of life is that you spent an entire year where pretty much every thought you had, every step you took, every word you uttered, every breath you drew, every bite you ate, could be your last. And not in the existential, modern day bullshit way, that yeah, I know everyone could be dead in the next moment but the fact is, its not that likely. When I went through it, it was a distinct possibility, and in the lion's share of my time a likely outcome.

Now people look at you cross-eyed when you tell them that you want to ride a bull. And that you want to run with the bulls in Spain. That you've generally got a psychotic need to follow in Ernest Hemingway's footsteps. Now he was a man if there ever was one.

Basically, it breaks down like this. I've spent all my time from the end of "that" until now trying to recapture that feeling. That state of mind. Its a wonderful thing. Every emotion was perfectly felt. The terror was perfect, the happiness was perfect, the calm was perfect, the longing was perfect, the sadness, the insanity, all of it...Perfect.

Slept like the dead.
Ate like a King.
Laughed like I was dying.
Loved like there wasn't another person in the world.
Thought, like a 9mm was about to find out if I could breath through my forehead.
Wrote like the page was my life and the ink was my blood.

And I don't understand why everyone seems to want me to stop trying to get those feelings back. I come back here to this soulless, lifeless, bloodless society and I wonder who's the crazy one?

Everything here is geared to increase comfort. Increase ease. Make your life easier. Compromise. Back down. Don't rock the boat. Don't make things hard. That's the mantra I keep hearing over and over again.

Get over these feelings you're having so you can get back to having a normal life. Hear that one all the fucking time. And I'm sick of it. I don't think that I'm the crazy one. I think you're the crazy one! You're the one who wants me to voluntarily give up my life and become another zombie. Go along to get along you tell me. Well I don't want to.

I want those perfect feelings back. Good or bad I felt those things from the top of my skull to the bottoms of my feet and from the base of my brain to the bottom floor of my soul. I want to run out into the world and find something, anything that will make me feel like that again. I want something, anything that will consume me to the point where I can be 100% in the moment. Something, anything that will remind me that I'm alive and that I may not be for much longer.

They say that I'm nuts because I embrace something as morbid as death. I don't embrace it, just so you know. I welcome it as a natural part of life. Something we're all going to do. Nothing to be afraid of, just the next rung in the ladder. Up or down, I haven't quite figured that part out yet. But I'm working on it. All it is to me is another chance to have those perfect feelings again...don't worry, I'm not going to rush it along.

Well, the prevailing wisdom here is that death is something to be avoided at all costs. With as much medical care as possible and as many pills as we can toss down your throat and on and on. Have you seen a hospice ward in a hospital? I have. Death is sweet mercy to those imprisoned there. I can only pray that when they shake off this mortal coil that they have that one moment of perfect feeling.

Over and over, I'm told that I have to compromise, that I have to moderate my thoughts and my actions to conform to the status quo that's been thrust upon me. I'm told that I can't live a good life thinking the way that I do.

The longer I'm nuts...the more certain I become that its you who is crazy.

So CALM. THE. FUCK. DOWN. I got this.

Later,

I love you Mom...
Posted by Mud Puppy at 1:39 AM



It is by no means a perfect piece of writing, but what is? It moved me, and writing that can move you has no flaws when your taking that trip. A perfectly composed piece of writing, one that has no grammatical errors, finding punctuation where it should be and not where it shouldn't, and correct in all technical sense, is not worth its ink if it does not move us in some way. I think the converse also true, writing that stirs something in us, moves us, makes us want to scream, makes us want to cry, can be riddled with flaws, but are only noticed upon closer inspection.

I have adopted the above belief, and feel it to be true with all my being, not only because I feel it to be true with all my being, but also no doubt because it works well for me. I will never write anything that is flawless, I am not that proficient, nor educated. I do believe at times I have writen things that others found moving. I know I have written things that have made others want to scream.

I think it is in most of us to write well, and I would like to see that here, when you are comfortable to do so.

lordmagellan said:

Watch your back.

AedanRayne said:

LadyLuna said:

(random: I just noticed the 60000 character limit... New?)

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:shock: I will personally stalk & shoot any person who tries to post more than 60,000 characters. I support this limit and ask that it is reduced. Thank you & have a nice day!

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All kidding aside, I support this, Camstory, but you have to consider this is the internet, where things happen at the speed of type/click/send. Most of us probably don't come here for very long worded posts. I know I tend to gloss over them. Not because I'm not a reader- I love it- but this just isn't where I come to do that. Honestly, a large group of words on a screen sometimes get all blurry on me.

I also have to question the legality of posting another's work. I wonder if linking to a source would be safer on that front. Not to say anyone would be prosecuted for posting anything here, but I'd rather avoid inadvertent plagiarism.

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I definitely support the 60k limit. I am not suggesting anything of that size. Many good short stories, and essays have been written in much less. MFC mail has a 3000 character limit which I fail all the time and have to send a two parter or even a three parter if I am telling a story. But anyone reaching a 60 k limit I agree needs to find a different format. And as far as it being more than what someone wants to read, the solution to that one seems very simple, don't read it. that is why we have different threads, so we can read the ones that interest us. It is not like these short works will be posted in the middle of the daily thoughts thread. I really don't see the problem with this aspect.

Now as far as the copyright issue, you may have a point. I had thought about linking to the story but did not know how to do that, so instead of figuring that out, I made it clear that it was from another blog, and that it was not mine, but I am not sure if that works really.

My intent was to allow some of us who most often do not put a lot of effort into the quality of our writing here the place and the chance to do so if they were so compelled. I think the sort of writing that is done here tends to take on a similar watered down voice and style. I am not saying that we all sound the same, just that the different styles that I find very interesting tend to be attenuated, the color faded.

I understand the speed at which things happen here, and it seems increasingly everywhere, - it is sad. We have gained immeasurably by the advantages of light speed communications. The fact that I created this thread less than two hours age and I am now responding to people that have already read it is pretty amazing. But if we don't make an effort to preserve the pieces of what was good about what came before we are foolish. I don't know if there is a good way anymore to display a finely crafted piece of amateur writing, and I may be one of a very few who cares to see such a display. After all if one wishes to read a well crafted piece of writing than there are still books.

I just think of the old autograph book that belonged to my mother's great ant. Every page was an example of the writers penmanship, the least of which I have never seen anyone alive the comparison. The best, tiny pieces of exquisite art. Sometime before my time it was decided that penmanship was no longer a course of study. That is most likely a good decision, the hours spent in learning and practice, better spent on learning more practical things.

Now that we no longer spend an hour composing a thoughtful letter, knowing it will be a week in return. That we no longer think how to word a thing because if we don't get it right we can very quickly send off another e-mail explaining what we actually meant. That we can reply to ten threads in an hour and see their reply back to us after dinner. That we have also decided that composing a thoughtful piece of writing no longer has any piratical application other than what we can find in a book store? Has it now become more piratical for the average person, who does not make writing his craft, to simply write shit? I don't know. I know personally I would like to see good writing skills practiced, if not all the time, at least now and then, that we don't lose them.

Frankie said:

As someone who actively writes (short stories & other) I'm so protective/self conscious of the stuff I write, I rarely would share in an open forum. Sorry. >_>

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I totally understand Frankie. I have a huge fear of posting anything myself, and maybe such a thread has no place here. I just thought it might be fun if we could find the courage to submit some short pieces of ours that would show our particular style and voice. It would come at the cost of having to "open your self BB" for criticism.

OK, I guess it is only fair that I post the first original work here since I started the thread. I composed this last night and have proofed it but nothing more, - first draft so go easy. I am a awful speeler, and I don't do well with punctuation ether.


He's there until the light seeps in around the window shades. It's a week gray glow, defuse and thick, the color of the sky to horizon in all directions. The traffic rolls by in an almost steady stream now, tires spraining wet into fender wells. The sound hitting him in damp waves across the face like a wet sponge. The dull thud, thud, thud, has returned at his temples and signals each beat of his heart. How many more he wonders, how many more before that dark silence meets him and the headaches are no more?

Exhausted, he washes another four Advil down with the last of the mickeys big mouth he opened around midnight. Looking into his monitor with the blank stair of someone just awake, who crunches cereal and gazes into infinity out kitchen window over frost covered field, he knows it's all just a fantasy. Or he thinks it is anyway. It has become hard to separate what is real from what is imagined. It is why they had fought to keep him locked up last time, and why he knows he has to fight to keep his wits about him now.

It had been a week, or maybe as many as 10 days since he last slept. This lack of sleep was what drove him to his spells of craziness. He knew it had been the factor, that before had drove him to this place of not being able to tell what was real from what was dreamed. He knew that his waking dreams were starting to blend with what was real, or what he thought was real.

Sleep, if only he could find a way to subdue the pounding in his head long enough to let sleep take him. A flicker at the right of his screen broke the trance. It was goldendoll logging on. He had been in her room late last night when she logged off. He knew she would know he had been up another night, but it was too late now, she had seen him. Pounding his fist down on the desk, he felt anger shot through him. Why had he not logged off? Why was she coming on at this hour? She never came on this early in the morning. She knew his problem with sleep, and she had been the first person at MFC who he had confided in when he got home from the hospital last time. Dam her, dam her, he thought as he pounded his fist again and again down on the desk top.

Waking from a hard sleep he sat straight up, and played back the nightmare in his head. It all seemed so real, so clear. It had the vivid sharpness of a fresh memory, not the foggy feel of a dream. He had struggled with a pounding headache when trying to fall asleep last night. For a minute he wondered if it was somehow real? had he just waken from the first sleep he had had in days? No, there was no model named goldendoll, what a ridiculous name. No, it was all just a dream. A clear, vivid, horrible, dream. As his thoughts left the nightmare, and swam toward the top, up toward the bright blue sky that streamed in through the window tops, a smile came to him, as he thought what a wonderful story this will be to tell at ACF.

Not wanting to forget a bit of it, he hurried to his computer, clicking the mouse to bring her out of stand-by, he watched as the monitor flickered to life. Distracted by the previous night's headache he must have forgotten to log off from MFC, but there was no time now, he had to get this down while it was still fresh. He opened a new tab, and brought up ACF. Logging on he tried to think of the best thread to post this to. Just then the MFC PM gong sounded. Instinctively clicking back to the MFC tab he saw there was a PM waiting for him. the screen name read GoldenDoll.